QUOTE=bunghole;526868]So Polar...can you provide any insight? Whats life like in Portland and is it a good place to raise a family or perhaps a neighboring community that is better?
How are the public/private schools? Crime? Traffic? etc.
Any info is appreciated.
What kind of pay are you looking at after 1 to 2 years? Any luck getting off the 3rd shift in that time are are you pretty much stuck?
Thanx
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To me Portland is an awesome place, but most of my experience has been visiting. It has all the highs and lows of any major city. Crime seems to be lower than most cities. I don't know much about the schools because I don't have any kids, maybe another QX employee on here could tell you that.
For a west coast location it is relatively affordable(Though if your from Oklahoma or Texas you'd call it outrageous). You will pay twice as much to live in LA, SF, or Seattle.
Traffic.........well.......... can you name any west coast city that does not have notorious traffic? The good news on that note is Trimet has awesome coverage with trains, busses, and trams. Even better is the fact if your a Horizon employee you get a Trimet yearly (yep I said yearly) pass for only $20(and I am not forgetting any zeros on that), taken out of your paycheck pre-tax. The train runs from 4am-11pm so getting to and from work is no problem.
On to pay. Pay is written into our AMFA union contract and currently starts at $15.20/hr(including license pay). This will go up to $15.41/hr in November. Expect about $1.00/year raise(though it varies from year to year). Our pay scale is a nine year top out which is tops against other regionals. Shift differential is 15 cents/hr swing, and 65 cents/hr grave. Unlike some other regionals our shift dif. and license premium are included in the overtime rate. For example at Eagle I worked for $15.28/hr, however $.25/hour was shift dif. for swing and $3.00/hr was license premium. For calculation of over time I really only made $12.03 which gave me an overtime rate of $18.05/hr. Add the premium back into it and I made $21.30/hr. The same overtime rate at Horizon is $22.92/hr. That is $1.62 more. Add that to the fact I am making more at Horizon now and you can see the wages are better. Bottom line is the fact all regionals don't have the best starting pay, but the experience gained can lead to more.
A difference at Horizon is benefits rock. There is very little you have to pay for yourself. Family coverage is at the price I was paying for single coverage at eagle for health benefits. The 401k is company matched, dollar for dollar up to 10 percent of your pay. Can you name many company's outside of aviation that do that with their 401k? Non-rev is free on Horizon and Alaska, except for First class and International taxes. Horizon also allows their mechanics to jumpseat on Horizon flights. While this is common at major carriers from what I have found, it is unheard of in the regional industry. This helps non-reving emensly in these days of high load factors. It is also a cool experience and helps to understand what is going on in flight with the systems instead of guessing from reading a book. Don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer in doing stuff by the book, but there are many things only experience can guide you to learn
Last is the inevitable question asked for by any airline mechanic......How long will you be stuck graveyard? That is anyone's guess. I do know some mechanics here that were never on it(very rare). My humble opinion is that you should be able to get at least a swing shift in that amount of time. The good news is if you work graveyard it is all four 10 hour days. If you work another shift it is all five eight hour days. Also staying in Portland is a huge factor too. If you go to an out station they are normally very senior. I know at a couple of outstations we have 15-20 year guys still stuck on graves. Bottom line is with few exceptions if you are an airline mechanic you are going to work graves. If you can get into this company now you'll have plenty of guys under you in a year or two to make getting off graves easier.
Sidenote: As always this is how it is now. Things in this industry change. Everything I just said could be gone tomorrow.
For the amount of responsibility that goes with the job its a sad condition for mechanics. 
